Not a proper answer to your question, but note that SAGA GIS and QGIS, which both run happily on Ubuntu, can handle LAS files and LiDAR processing too.
– Paulo RaposoJul 8 '16 at 1:03

As far as I know, the only way for QGIS to load and work on *.LAS files is with LAStools and they need Wine to work (they only exist as *.exe). I do not have the possibility to install Wine on this machine. And it's a mess ; there is a LASzip folder within the LAStools github repo and there is also a LASzip github repo... Which one to use ? Anyway, when compiling PDAL using CMake I alway end up with this message : -- The following RECOMMENDED packages have not been found: * LASzip Provides LASzip compression
– s.kJul 8 '16 at 13:05

@s.k. Clone LASzip from Github and then checkout tag 2.0.2. PDAL does not work with 2.2.0, the latest version.
– RichardAug 12 '16 at 22:00